


Count My Love

by aretia, CynSyn



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Blackmail, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Cuddling & Snuggling, Demon Aziraphale (Good Omens), Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Kissing, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Memory Loss, Miscommunication, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Role Reversal, Roleswap, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:22:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25088365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aretia/pseuds/aretia, https://archiveofourown.org/users/CynSyn/pseuds/CynSyn
Summary: After the not-apocalypse, Aziraphale and Crowley should be able to be together without fear. But the threat of Aziraphale falling still looms over both of them. Crowley wants to protect Aziraphale from falling at all costs. Aziraphale just wants to ease Crowley’s worries that their relationship is putting him in danger. They both come up with their own solution--switch over to the other side.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 91
Collections: Good Omens Mini Bang





	Count My Love

Crowley lay sprawled out on the couch in the back room of the bookshop, his head resting on top of Aziraphale’s chest, melting into a relaxed puddle of bliss as Aziraphale carded his fingers through his hair. It had grown out again, and Aziraphale savored the sensation of touching those shoulder-length locks. 

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Crowley…” His hand paused in stroking Crowley’s hair and came to rest against the back of his head. “What was falling like?”

Crowley made a startled noise in his throat, lifting his head up from the soft pillow of Aziraphale’s body. “Why would you ask that?”

“Oh, you know,” Aziraphale hedged, waving his hand vaguely. “The other angels haven’t caught on to our little stunt, but they still aren’t too happy that I’m fraternizing with a demon. They’re all taking bets on how long I will last before I fall.” 

“Aziraphale, how can you talk about that so lightly?” Crowley asked. He folded his arms on top of Aziraphale’s chest to prop himself up. “The idea of you falling is… it’s unthinkable. I won’t allow it.”

“But, my dear Crowley…” Aziraphale said, with a playful smile spreading from his lips to his round, ruddy cheeks, as he reached out to brush the side of Crowley’s face with his thumb. “I’ve already fallen for you.”

“Angel! I’m being serious!” Crowley sputtered. “If being with me is putting you at risk of falling, then… there must be something I can do to keep that from happening.” His eyes flickered away from Aziraphale’s, as if the unspoken solution he had come up with was one that he didn’t want to say any more than Aziraphale wanted to hear it: _I could leave._

Aziraphale wrapped his arms possessively around Crowley. _No, please, don’t ever leave me._

“I’m being serious too,” Aziraphale argued. “I would do anything to stay with you, even if that means falling.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” said Crowley. “Falling is more than just an unpleasant trip. It feels like a part of your soul is being ripped out, and that pain never goes away.” 

Aziraphale had finally gotten Crowley to answer his original question, and the answer compelled him to hug Crowley even tighter. “Oh, Crowley… you never told me that was how you felt. I always assumed that…”

“That what? That I was happy being a demon?” Crowley filled in. “Well, I got used to it. And I’d still take it over holier-than-thou Heaven any day. But I don’t want it to happen to you.” He responded to Aziraphale’s hold, nuzzling deeper into his chest. “You deserve good things. You deserve an eternity of comfort and happiness and love. You don’t deserve to fall.”

“That’s very kind of you to say,” Aziraphale said. 

For once, Crowley didn’t object to being called kind.

“Just out of curiosity,” Crowley asked, “which part does Heaven have a problem with? The fraternizing part or the demon part?”

“Pardon?” Aziraphale said.

“I mean, is Heaven against relationships in general? Or do they specifically have a problem with me because I’m a demon?”

“Oh, they have no problem with relationships in a general sense. Love is holy,” Aziraphale said, with just a hint of a mocking tone that would be easy to miss if one was not as well versed in Aziraphale’s secret language of bastard-ness as Crowley was. “But having even so much as a casual working relationship with a demon, that’s bound to get you some judgmental looks, at the very least.”

“Got it,” mused Crowley. “So, hypothetically, if you were in love with an angel, they wouldn’t give you any trouble?”

“I suppose so, in theory,” Aziraphale agreed. “But I didn’t fall in love with an angel. I fell in love with _you,_ and all that you are.”

“Always so sentimental,” Crowley sighed. He tried to hide his fond smile by burying his face in the soft swell of Aziraphale’s neck, but Aziraphale could feel Crowley’s lips curving against his skin as he leaned into the touch. 

~

Aziraphale had thought about it for a while.

Crowley had a deep well of pain within him, one that Aziraphale couldn’t fathom. Before the Apocalypse that wasn’t, it had been a chasm that divided them. Aziraphale had feared what lay beneath the surface, and what it could do to him, but now that he had fully accepted his love for Crowley, he wanted nothing more than to plumb those depths. He longed to show Crowley that no part of him was too vulnerable to reveal. He wanted to love Crowley completely, without fear or holding back. In order to love Crowley in the way that he needed to be loved, he had to understand his pain. 

He had to fall. 

Crowley wouldn’t like it. He wanted to protect Aziraphale. But Aziraphale couldn’t shake the sense that when Crowley wanted to protect him from falling, he really wanted to protect him from _himself._ As long as Aziraphale was an angel, Crowley would always feel like he was a danger to him. That could mean that Crowley would turn away from him if he decided the risk was too great, and Aziraphale would never be ready to let Crowley go. If Aziraphale fell by his own volition, there would be no more risk for either of them. 

They had always been on their own side. But once they were on the same side in the eyes of everyone else, they could forge a more intimate connection than they ever had before.

He had to fall, but he didn’t know how.

It wasn’t as if there was a form that he could submit in triplicate and have it neatly taken care of in four to six business days. No one in the history of Heaven had ever asked to fall. It happened suddenly and without warning. He thought that maybe just thinking about it would be enough to induce it, because doubts and questions used to be enough, but even after he had contemplated it for weeks, his angelic nature remained unchanged. And even after all the things Aziraphale had done in his past that ought to have made him fall--giving away his sword and lying to the Almighty about it, possessing a human, averting the Apocalypse--it had never happened. All the other angels might think that he deserved to fall, but he was the only one who could make that decision for himself. 

His footsteps echoed down the empty corridor in Heaven, for what he realized would be the last time. There, in the middle of the wall, boarded up and covered with caution tape, surrounded by traffic cones, was an elevator door. 

The elevator had been a convenient method of travel for angels tasked with the hands-on details of creation on Earth. No one ever asked why it had buttons for floors lower than the ground floor, because asking questions was frowned upon back in those days. Until the war, when angels stripped the elevator car out, pried the doors open to the vacant shaft, and shoved other angels into it to fall to their demise. It was nicknamed the demon garbage chute. When the dust had settled, it would have been easy to build a wall to cover it, sealing off the fastest entrance to Hell forever. The administration chose to plaster it with warning labels instead, a reminder of what could happen to anyone if they stepped out of line. 

Aziraphale set aside the traffic cones, pulled down the caution tape, and stripped off the boards. Once revealed, it almost looked like a normal elevator. He pressed the call button.

It didn’t do anything to the decommissioned elevator, of course, but the little light behind the arrow pointing downwards felt symbolic.

He pushed his fingers in between the doors, and pried them open. The long-sealed doors rumbled as they opened for the first time in millennia. Heat and the scent of brimstone wafted up from below.

The noise brought someone running from one of the nearby offices. “Aziraphale! What do you think you’re doing?” Michael called.

“Er, I suppose you could say that I’m showing myself out,” Aziraphale replied, not looking over his shoulder. His voice sounded strangely calm when it echoed back to him against the walls of the elevator shaft. 

“Get away from there! It’s dangerous!” she yelled. Her voice didn’t draw any closer, as if she was afraid to approach him, even to pull him back from the edge. 

He wasn’t fooled into thinking that she really cared about his safety. She had been one of the first to sneer at him about his inevitable fall after the failed apocalypse. She only objected because if an angel fell by choice, it wouldn’t be as easy for Archangels like her to use it as a threat to the rest of them anymore. 

“I’m going to have to write you up for this!” Her desperate screams sounded distant now.

“For Crowley,” he whispered, and stepped into the elevator shaft. 

For an instant, he felt like he was floating. Then, he plummeted. The air rushed up past him so fast that he couldn’t breathe. There was no need to breathe outside of the physical realm. He needed to anyway. Starved of air, burning from the inside, the pain was so intense that he needed to scream. Yet, at the same time, so overwhelming that he couldn’t do anything but endure it in silence. 

Then, pressure crushed his body, as if he had hit the ground hard before he had even reached the bottom of the descent. It felt like a great claw had hooked into him and caught on something inside him, then gouged it out. It was his angelic essence being ripped away, his core hollowed out, his body flayed open. What filled the gaping void left inside him was fire, darkness, and a shrieking voice of self-loathing that drowned out everything else.

With the thread of consciousness that he had left amidst the onslaught, he realized that Crowley had gone through this before. He could see now why Crowley wanted to protect him from it. He should have listened to him. Not even the thought of Crowley could distract him from the pain.

He felt like the fall would last forever. When he crashed to the ground, it was almost a mercy.

Aziraphale tumbled out of the elevator shaft, landing face down on the dirty floor of Hell. “Oi! Get out of there! This izzz a restricted area!” a demon yelled. The buzz in the voice that carried across the room made it clear who was speaking to him.

Beelzebub nudged his shoulder with the tip of their boot and turned him over. “Oh no. You?” they groaned. “Those wankerzz finally decided to make you our problem, did they?”

“Lord Beelzebub?” Aziraphale rasped out through the soot choking his throat. He braced himself for whatever torture Beelzebub had in store for him. 

They yanked him up by the back of his collar, but instead of hurting him, they pulled him to his feet. He couldn’t make sense of the expression in their icy eyes, because it looked almost like pity. “Look. Go back to Earth, or whatever you want, I don’t care. Just don’t let me catch you mezzing around down here again, got it?” 

Aziraphale nodded hastily. A flaming circle of sigils opened up behind Aziraphale’s feet. Beelzebub shoved him back, and he stumbled into the circle.

The portal dropped him off in front of Crowley’s flat. He hadn’t consciously directed it there. If he had wanted to go to the safest place on Earth, the place that felt like home, he would have thought that would be the bookshop. His shattered mind hadn’t sought comfort in a place, but in Crowley, and guided him to wherever Crowley was. 

His angelic essence had been carved out of him, and he felt hollow inside. But at least he still had Crowley. He reached out with his ethereal senses for Crowley’s love, as he had for so long whenever he needed something to tether himself to, and found… 

Nothing. The love was gone. Only darkness loomed in his otherworldly sense.

Crowley knew. He knew what Aziraphale had done. Aziraphale had betrayed him. He had thrown away everything they had worked to protect, and now he had nothing left inside him. There was no chance Crowley could still love him after that. The love was meant for his angelic nature, not the empty shell that remained in its absence. The comfort he needed would not come from Crowley, who lay just on the other side of this door and yet so far out of his reach. His mind inflicted upon him a vision of Crowley looking at his demonic form in disgust before turning his back on him. 

The pain of the fall felt dull, barely registering in his senses. Losing Crowley was infinitely worse than falling. 

His legs gave out underneath him, and he slumped heavily against the door. It swung open for him, and he stumbled over the threshold of the flat, then collapsed on the floor. 

~

Crowley was sitting idly in his office when a demonic presence surged into the flat. Paranoia flooded through his veins. They knew. They’d found him out and were here to stop him. On his way through the plant room, he armed himself with a spray bottle, determined to see this through. He wouldn’t give up on his plan, not with Aziraphale’s safety at stake. Steeling himself to face whatever Hell’s forces had sent after him, he stepped out into the entryway.

He was not prepared for what he found there. There was a demon on his floor, all right, but not just any demon. A newly fallen angel. _His_ angel. 

“Aziraphale!” Crowley screamed, panic crowding out all the other thoughts in his head. He threw the spray bottle aside and ran to Aziraphale, then kneeled on the floor in front of him, pulling his head into his lap. “What happened to you?”

Aziraphale curled in on himself, covering his face in his hands. “Don’t look at me, I’m hideous,” he sobbed. His voice cracked with pain the likes of which Crowley hadn’t known since the time he had found himself at the bottom of a pit, screaming his throat out to a Heaven that would never listen.

“You are not,” Crowley said, stroking his hand over Aziraphale’s hair. His hair was still cloud-like, but instead of fluffy white tufts, it had now frothed up into a storm-cloud-gray mass of unruly curls. “Who did this to you? Gabriel? Michael? I’ll fight all of them. I’ll fight God Herself. Tell me who did this, and I’ll destroy them--”

“Nobody did this to me,” Aziraphale interrupted. “I did this to myself.”

Crowley felt as if the floor had dropped out from under him, and he himself was the one free-falling. The anger that had flared up in his chest at the thought of the other angels burned out. “You what?” he said through a thick swallow.

“I fell on purpose,” Aziraphale admitted. “I opened up the elevator shaft and jumped in. Michael tried to stop me, even. I thought that if I fell, we could be together without you worrying all the time about putting me in danger. But I realize now what a stupid idea that was, because…” He hiccuped with another sob. “Because I don’t know how you can still love me after I’ve done this…”

“What are you talking about?” Crowley said.

“You only loved me so that you could get closer to the holiness that you lost so long ago. But now that I don’t have it anymore, I have nothing left to offer you…”

“Aziraphale, stop talking nonsense,” Crowley said, squeezing his shoulder to pull him out of his self-loathing spiral. He knew that kind of talk all too well, and he didn’t want to hear it coming out of Aziraphale’s pretty mouth. “I love you, and it has nothing to do with whether you’re holy or not. Falling messes with your head. You’re going to believe the worst about yourself, that you deserved it, but I’m here to tell you that none of that is true. You never deserved this, but you’re perfect as you are, too.”

“Really?” Aziraphale murmured, his voice hopeful behind the sobs.

“Yes,” said Crowley. “Will you let me see you?” He slid his fingers underneath Aziraphale’s wrists, and gently nudged his hands away from his face. When he met Aziraphale’s open eyes, he gasped. “Oh.”

Instinctively, Aziraphale squeezed his eyes shut and flung his hands back up to shield his face again. “I knew it. You think I’m ugly,” he whimpered.

“No, that’s not it at all,” Crowley insisted. “You’re so beautiful. Please, let me look again.” This time, Aziraphale willingly withdrew his hands, and opened his eyes to look up at Crowley. His sclera had turned black to match the color of his pupils. His irises were still blue, a very different blue than the changing seas of his angel eyes, but stunning all the same. They were glowing, electric blue, and they made rings of light in the black, like a beacon of safety in a storm.

“You… you fiend,” Aziraphale stammered, shying away from the intense adoration in Crowley’s gaze. But Crowley was greedy, and he hadn’t looked his fill yet. He took Aziraphale’s chin in his hand to tilt his face towards him, and then once he felt that soft flesh under his fingertips, he wasn’t satisfied with just looking anymore. He leaned down, curling around Aziraphale like the serpent that he was looming over his prey, and kissed him. He pressed his fierce devotion and reassurance into Aziraphale’s lips with his own. Kissing Aziraphale in demon form felt like sparks skipping between their lips, the fiery essences within them twining around each other.

When he pulled back, Aziraphale breathed deeply. “Ah,” he sighed. “That was the first thing I felt tonight that didn’t hurt.”

“Well, that’s a start,” said Crowley, not wanting to linger on the thought of Aziraphale being in pain. “C’mon, let’s get up from the floor.” He slipped his arms under Aziraphale’s shoulders and helped him to his feet. Aziraphale stood unsteadily, his hands gripping Crowley’s arms as he followed him with shaky steps down the hall to the bedroom. It sent a jolt down his spine to see the extent of Aziraphale’s physical injuries, but those were temporary. The emotional scars would last forever.

Aziraphale went to that fate willingly, for him. Crowley’s emotions didn’t know what to do with that knowledge. He wanted to feel angry, but he had nowhere to direct his anger, since he didn’t want to blame Aziraphale. He wanted to feel grateful, that Aziraphale loved him so much that he would endure such pain for him, but that also felt wrong, because he never would have asked Aziraphale to do this. Most of all, he felt protective of Aziraphale, and wanted to be there for him, the way no one was after his own fall.

Except someone was. An angel in a garden put his wing over him to shield him from the first rain. The first being who had ever been kind to him needed him now. It was the least Crowley could do to return the favor. 

He eased Aziraphale onto the bed. As Aziraphale lay there on the satin sheets, a worried expression crinkled the corners of his midnight-dark eyes. “What’s happening? I feel like I can’t keep my eyes open.”

Crowley smiled fondly at him while sitting on the side of the bed, running his fingers through Aziraphale’s curly hair, exploring the texture of it. “You’re tired,” he said.

“I don’t _get_ tired,” Aziraphale said petulantly. “Is this a side effect of falling? Do demons get tired?”

“Sometimes,” said Crowley. He was more accustomed to sleeping than most demons, but he suspected that other demons would develop the habit if they had to spend a significant amount of time on Earth. “But I think it’s just because you’ve been through a lot. You should get some sleep.”

Aziraphale tugged on Crowley’s sleeve. “I don’t want to,” he whispered. “I’m afraid that you won’t be here when I wake up.”

“Oh, angel,” Crowley said, leaning over him, but then Aziraphale’s face crumpled on a sob. 

“You can’t call me that. I’m not an angel anymore,” Aziraphale whimpered. 

“I’m sorry, Aziraphale, I’m so sorry,” Crowley said, climbing into bed beside him and pulling his head against his chest. “But you’ll always be _my_ angel. And I’m never going to leave you. I’ll be here to hold you while you sleep, and I’ll still be here when you wake up. That sound okay?”

Aziraphale made a small, affirmative noise.

“Good,” Crowley said. “But I think you should be comfortable first before you go to sleep.” He snapped his fingers and they were dressed in their pajamas, black silk for Crowley, and light blue striped flannel for Aziraphale.

“Oh, thank you,” said Aziraphale.

“You’re welcome, angel,” Crowley said. This time, he watched Aziraphale’s face for any sign of distress, but Aziraphale only smiled bashfully, like he understood how he meant it this time. Crowley kissed him on the forehead, then on each cheek, and then pressed a chaste kiss to Aziraphale’s parted lips. “Sleep well.”

Aziraphale snuggled closer to Crowley, and Crowley wrapped his arms around him, one arm underneath his shoulders, the other one draped over his plump waist. Crowley pulled the blankets up over both of them, and glared at the lights until they obligingly flickered out. Aziraphale, exhausted as he was, dozed off in just a few breaths.

~

Crowley stared up at the ceiling as he lay there in bed, next to Aziraphale, the one who had sacrificed everything just so that Crowley wouldn’t have to live in fear of putting him in danger. They could do this. They could make it work, with both of them being demons. They could stay in the darkness together. 

If only Crowley hadn’t mucked it up by pursuing a plan of his own.

Aziraphale had said that angels didn’t have a problem with relationships with other angels, only with demons, and that had stuck with Crowley. He could protect Aziraphale from falling, if only he could become an angel again. He didn’t _really_ want to be an angel, and deal with all those stuffy, uptight rules and restrictions, but he would endure it for Aziraphale’s sake. 

The only problem was that no demon had ever reversed their fall. But no demon had ever been as creative as Crowley. 

He had written up an appeal of his own fall. He handed it to the Archangel Gabriel, and when Gabriel scoffed at him, he explained just what was at stake here. Crowley had found contracts in Hell’s archives that defined the roles of the fallen angels until the war, and in the event that they won or lost, but the contracts conspicuously had nothing to say about the event that the war didn’t happen at all. It was a loophole, Crowley reasoned, one that meant that fallen angels weren’t bound to be fallen anymore once the Apocalypse had stopped before it started. And if Gabriel didn’t send Crowley’s own appeal up to the Almighty, Crowley would tell the rest of Hell about it, and he could bet that at least some demons would be eager to get in on it. If Gabriel didn’t want his desk to be flooded with appeals, all he had to do was send this one. Gabriel caved.

It didn’t matter that there really was no such loophole, or such contracts at all. It wasn’t as if Gabriel would go down to the archives in Hell to check himself. Even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to get past Dagon.

If it had been up to Gabriel to turn Crowley back into an angel, that would have been the end of it. But it wasn’t within his power to do that. All he could do was stick Crowley’s letter in a mail chute that carried it up to the Almighty, and wait for Her to review it. Crowley waited for weeks. If She was omniscient, surely She read all her incoming letters. That must have meant that She rejected his appeal without a response, which was about what he had expected from Heaven, being as it was like the sort of corporate behemoth that didn’t bother to send rejection letters to job applicants. He had resigned himself to believing that it was a stupid plan all along. 

Except that night, while he lay beside Aziraphale, the ceiling ripped open in a portal of white light, and Gabriel peeked through it.

Crowley scrambled up from the bed, instinctively moving his body to shield Aziraphale from the unwanted intrusion. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

“Good news, Crowley. Your appeal was accepted,” said Gabriel, his tone neutral. “Come with me.”

Crowley glanced frantically between Gabriel and Aziraphale. He still had a chance to wriggle his way out of this mess. But first, he had to make sure that Aziraphale didn’t wake up to find him gone. He pressed a demonic miracle into Aziraphale’s skin with kisses to his eyelids. “You will sleep soundly, and dream of beautiful things, and only awaken from my touch,” Crowley whispered, leaving him with one more parting kiss to his forehead before he snapped himself dressed and followed Gabriel into the portal.

The entrance to Heaven looked different than any he had seen before. He walked with Gabriel up a long, white staircase. “You know, loopholes in contracts are a demonic invention. You won’t be allowed to use them anymore once you’re an angel,” Gabriel commented. 

“I know, listen, isn’t there a way to reverse this?” Crowley said.

“You want to retract your appeal? Oh, no, Crowley, this decision is permanent,” Gabriel said. “By approving your appeal, the Almighty is already admitting that She made a mistake by casting you out, and I don’t even want to think about the implications of that.” Gabriel shuddered, and his face contorted into a pained grimace. “We can’t go back on our decision a second time. Heaven cannot give the impression that we make mistakes.”

That sounded about as idiotic as Gabriel’s belief that _God does not play games with the universe,_ but Crowley didn’t push it. “Fine, but why now?” he asked instead. 

“What do you mean?” Gabriel said. “This process takes time, you can’t expect us to--”

“Why only approve my appeal after Aziraphale fell?” Crowley demanded.

Gabriel looked scandalized, but it wasn’t as if Aziraphale’s fall was a secret that he had to keep. He knew that all of Heaven had to be reeling from the shock of the angel who chose to fall, who shook their system of fear down to its foundation. Aziraphale’s fall scared them, because it represented that he had never been theirs to control.

“Well, there have always been a set number of angels ever since the war. Maybe there was a surplus of angelic energy that was released when Aziraphale fell, and it was freed up for you to take his place.” The tightness in Gabriel’s voice and the clench of his teeth made it obvious that he was making this up. 

“Or maybe God just has a cruel sense of humor,” Crowley retorted. 

They stepped off the staircase into a large room which was familiar to Crowley. If he were still in his physical body, his heart would have dropped into the pit of his stomach. It was the same room where Aziraphale’s execution had been held. But Gabriel didn’t know that it was really Crowley who had been there, so he couldn’t show any sign that he recognized it. He swallowed his discomfort and followed the Archangel to the center of the room, where a beam of light shone from the ceiling to the floor.

“Once you step inside there, you will be turned back into an angel,” Gabriel said. Then, with his lips curling back to reveal an unsettling grin, he added, “And lose all your memories of Aziraphale.”

“What?! That wasn’t part of the deal,” Crowley sputtered. 

“You didn’t exactly give me a fair deal when you blackmailed me into sending your appeal, either,” Gabriel reminded him smugly. “We can stand here all day, but the decision has already been made. That pillar of light is going to consume you, whether you go into it willingly or not. So I suggest that you get it over with now, or else it will be even more painful for you.”

Crowley ground his heels against the immaculate tile floor. Would he have sought this if he had known that it would mean giving up his memories of Aziraphale? If he were still trying to protect Aziraphale from falling, he probably would have. His own happiness wasn’t worth putting Aziraphale at risk. He would give up anything and everything he had, if it meant that Aziraphale would be safe.

But Aziraphale had already given up everything for Crowley. He had chosen to fall, because all he wanted was to be with Crowley. Aziraphale needed him, and Crowley would not abandon him. He might not be able to turn his back on the consequence of his poor decisions, but he could walk headfirst into it, and he could fight it. 

Crowley stepped into the pillar of light. Searing heat flooded into him, igniting the core of his being. His demonic essence raged against it, but the heavenly light burned brighter, and singed it away into nothing. The scorching pain reached a breaking point, and then stopped altogether and gave way to a blissful calm. Divine love surged through him, filling him up and erasing everything else.

A tiny voice of protest broke free from the hypnotic peace. The place in his soul where love resided was already full. It belonged to Aziraphale. Aziraphale _was_ love, and Crowley’s love for Aziraphale was embedded deep in his very core. Aziraphale, the angel who had stood by his side for millennia. Aziraphale, the demon who was asleep in his bed, waiting for him to come home. Aziraphale, the being who loved him with a boundless, unfathomable love, and deserved that love in return.

Crowley clung to that love and shielded it from the light. _Don’t take this from me. Take everything, but not this._ He wrapped his whole being around it and protected it, even as the light consumed him. It pried him apart until he lost his grip on what he was so desperately trying to hold, until he felt as if his soul had disintegrated into scattered particles. Then, the light faded, and dropped him unceremoniously to the floor. 

Gabriel offered him a hand to pull him up. “Remember anything?” he asked.

He took Crowley’s glassy-eyed, blank expression as the answer he wanted to hear.

Gabriel smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Good. Head on back to Earth, and try to stay out of trouble, okay?” He clapped his hands, and Crowley teleported from Heaven’s office to a street in London on a rare sunny day.

Crowley swayed on his feet, disoriented. The ground beneath him barely felt solid. He was floating on a wave of unseen energy, buoyed up and enveloped in it. He dismissed it as a reaction to being back in his corporeal body, compensating for the pain of the transformation with pleasant sensations. He didn’t have time to dwell on it, when he couldn’t ignore the nagging feeling that he had forgotten something important.

The last thing he remembered was a feeling of love. Not heavenly love, but a love that was his own. Crowley felt around inside his mind for his memories, knowing that if they were truly gone, he wouldn’t even know that something was missing. 

Then, he remembered Aziraphale, and almost fell to his knees right there in the street from relief, his hand pressed against the pounding in his chest. 

He had to get back to Aziraphale. Time passed differently on the metaphysical plane, so he worried that while he was in Heaven, he could have left Aziraphale alone for days or weeks or years. He checked his watch, and found that only a few hours had passed since he had left. He had performed a miracle so that Aziraphale would stay asleep until he got back, but he still didn’t want to leave Aziraphale by himself for long. He recognized the street he was on as one a few blocks away from his flat, so he took off running down the street. 

Miracles drew their power from Heaven or Hell, and since Crowley’s demonic nature had changed after he did the miracle, it had come untethered from its source. If Aziraphale was still asleep, it would be a miracle in the way modern humans use the word, a stroke of luck.

Crowley opened the door of his flat to the sound of sobbing. “Aziraphale!” he called out. He rushed towards the bedroom. 

Aziraphale sat up on the bed, weeping uncontrollably. The tears that rolled down his cheeks were black like dye suspended in water, like they had dripped from the inkwell of his eyes. “Where are you, Crowley? Why did you leave me?” he wailed. 

“Aziraphale, I’m right here,” Crowley said, approaching the bed. 

Aziraphale opened his eyes, still swimming with tears, and drew back from Crowley with a shocked gasp. "You're not Crowley!” he accused. “You're one of the angels wearing his guise, come to mock me in the wake of my fall, to add insult to injury.”

It had never occurred to Crowley that Aziraphale would have trouble recognizing him in his angelic form. Even through all of his fashion whims and ill-advised hairstyles, Aziraphale had always recognized him. He had never changed the essence of his being before, however. 

“It’s really me, I swear,” Crowley reassured him.

"Prove it. Prove that you're the real Crowley," Aziraphale demanded. 

"Er, let's see. What's something that only I would know? Oh, I've got it,” Crowley muttered. “In 1600, you got drunk and admitted that you had stolen one of Shakespeare's manuscripts from his desk when he wasn't looking. You said no one would ever find out, but I always knew."

"I suppose that's sufficient evidence," sniffed Aziraphale. "But when I said 'prove it,' I meant something more along the lines of 'kiss me.'"

"Oh. Well then, don’t mind if I do," Crowley said with a flirtatious smirk. He climbed onto the bed and straddled Aziraphale’s lap, sliding his hand behind his head and tangling his fingers in the corkscrew curls. He brought his lips to Aziraphale’s in an ecstatic kiss, his angelic essence mingling with Aziraphale’s demonic one in a way that felt the same as they had been before and yet entirely new.

"Oh, Crowley, it really is you,” Aziraphale sighed when their lips drew apart, leaning his forehead against Crowley’s. “But… if it is you, why do you feel like an angel?" 

"I may have done something stupid,” Crowley admitted. “I hope you'll forgive me."

"When have you ever not done something stupid?" Aziraphale giggled. When Crowley picked up a pillow and dropped it on top of his head, he amended, "I mean, when have I ever not forgiven you?" 

"That's better," Crowley said. He tugged Aziraphale down by his shoulders so that they lay face to face on the bed, sharing the same pillow. “Remember when you said that if I was an angel, you wouldn’t get in trouble? I appealed my fall, and I blackmailed Heaven into sending my appeal to the Almighty, so that I could turn back into an angel and not risk making you fall.”

“Such a demonic method of trying to become an angel again,” Aziraphale remarked, with a wiggle of his shoulders. “How delightfully devious.”

“You would like that, now that you’re…” Crowley said, and then bit his tongue. He didn’t want to be the one to remind Aziraphale of his changed nature, not when the wounds were so fresh. 

“A demon? It’s okay, you can say it,” Aziraphale said, although there was a hint of melancholy in his voice. “So, did it work?”

“Technically, it _didn’t_ work. Because the whole point of my plan was to prevent you from falling, but then you went and did that first,” Crowley said, tapping the tip of Aziraphale’s nose with his finger, which earned him a smile for his efforts. “I thought they forgot about me. But last night, my appeal was approved. They forced me to go. I never would have left you otherwise.”

“I know,” said Aziraphale. “How did it work? The… oh, that’s never happened before, has it? A demon turning into an angel? What would you call it? The ascent?”

“It was awful,” said Crowley. “There was this big beam of light that felt like it was burning me alive. And… it was supposed to erase my memories of you. But I didn’t let it, because I love you too much.”

“You went through all that for me?” Aziraphale said.

“It was nothing,” said Crowley. “Nothing compared to what you went through for me, I mean.”

“Oh, Crowley, if we had just _talked_ about what we were planning, you never would have had to…” Aziraphale whimpered, sounding close to tears again.

Crowley cradled Aziraphale’s face in his hands, his thumb brushing against Aziraphale’s cheekbone. “You think I would have _let_ you fall if you had told me that was what you were planning to do?”

“Well, no…” Aziraphale sighed, leaning into Crowley’s touch.

“You got that right,” said Crowley. “So I would have marched up to Heaven, and let them take my memories so that I could protect you from falling, and I probably would never have seen you again.”

“What?! No!” Aziraphale exclaimed. “I never would have let you do that either!”

“So you see the problem,” said Crowley. “We’re both stubborn.”

“You are _insufferable,_ ” Aziraphale huffed. 

“What are you going to do about it?” Crowley said, his grin widening.

Aziraphale kissed him, Crowley’s palms against his cheeks guiding him in and holding him close. His thumb swiped over a droplet of moisture, and he pulled back to find that Aziraphale was crying. “What’s wrong?” Crowley asked. 

“Oh, it’s just that…” Aziraphale sniffled. “I know that you love me, but I’m a demon now, and demons can’t…”

“Oh no. Nuh-uh. None of that,” Crowley said, gathering Aziraphale into a tight embrace. “Are you going to tell me that demons can’t love? If I managed to be in love with you for six thousand years as a demon, you can do it too.”

“Demons can’t _sense_ love, is what I was going to say,” said Aziraphale. "Even before I knew what it was, your love was like a familiar comfort to me for my entire existence on Earth. Now, when I try to reach out for it, all I feel is emptiness. How can I still feel your love when the fall took away my ability to sense it?" 

“Like this,” Crowley said, surging forward for another kiss. Aziraphale melted into it, his lips soft and welcoming, his hand coming up to trace the side of Crowley’s face. 

Crowley had forgotten about the angelic ability to sense love. Now, he realized that the energy he had felt since he set foot on Earth was Aziraphale’s love, washing over him in waves with each brush of lips and caress of hands. It overwhelmed him, being able to feel it for the first time. When he felt the tears start to roll down his cheeks, he let them, and let Aziraphale wipe them away with gentle touches. “I can feel it,” Crowley said, his breath hitching. “This feeling of love, it’s everywhere.”

“Yes. And it’s all for you, my dear,” Aziraphale said, with a kiss to Crowley’s cheek.

~

Crowley nuzzled his face against Aziraphale’s shoulder, intoxicated by the currents of Aziraphale’s love. “Never going to leave you again,” he murmured. “Could stay here forever.”

Aziraphale’s answering hum didn’t sound entirely on board with the idea.

Crowley propped himself up, and momentarily forgot what he was going to say when he caught sight of Aziraphale’s captivating eyes. “...Unless you have an objection to that?” he drawled.

“No, no objections,” Aziraphale insisted. Crowley quirked up an eyebrow at him. “It’s just that, well… I am feeling a bit peckish.”

Crowley kissed Aziraphale’s cheek to hide the blush that was blooming on his own. Aziraphale’s pleading pout was going to discorporate him one of these days. “Why didn’t you say so?” he said. All he wanted was to make sure that Aziraphale never wanted for anything, that he was happy and fulfilled at all times. “C’mon, angel, let’s go to breakfast.”

Crowley climbed out of the bed first, and held out his hands to Aziraphale to help him up. When Aziraphale stood, his legs didn’t shake as much as they had the night before. Without a second thought, Crowley threw his arms around Aziraphale and pulled him into a hug. He wrapped one arm tight around Aziraphale’s waist while his other hand tangled in the curly hair. “I’m just so glad I didn’t lose you,” Crowley whispered, with his lips pressed against Aziraphale’s neck. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Aziraphale’s hands on his back clenched tightly around the fabric of Crowley's shirt. “Neither do I,” he said. “When I thought you were really gone… I’d rather not think about it.”

“Let’s not, then,” Crowley agreed. He reluctantly released Aziraphale from his embrace to let him get dressed. Crowley stood in front of the mirror and pulled his hair up into a half-bun, and noticed that the dark undertones of the copper red had changed to an amber glow. 

Aziraphale returned to his side, dressed in his clothes that Crowley had miracled clean of soot, holding up a pair of Crowley’s sunglasses. Crowley leaned down and let him slide them onto his face. “It’s such a shame you always felt like you had to hide your eyes. The color is so beautiful,” Aziraphale said, pausing for a moment to admire them. “And--oh! Look at that! Your pupils have changed. They’re shaped like little hearts.”

“What? No way,” said Crowley. He tilted the sunglasses down with his finger and peered into the mirror. His pupils were indeed in the shape of hearts, rounded on the sides and curving to a downward point at the bottom.

“They suit you, my darling,” Aziraphale said, rising up on his toes to press a kiss to Crowley’s cheek. Then, he rummaged around in the drawer of Crowley’s nightstand. “Ready to go?” he asked, turning back to Crowley.

Aziraphale had put on one of Crowley’s old pairs of sunglasses, tortoiseshell frames that complemented the light colors of his outfit. “Those look good on you,” Crowley said. 

“Really? Oh, thank you,” Aziraphale said with a delighted wiggle. “These were the ones you wore when we had our first meeting about the Antichrist, weren’t they? For me, that was the first time that ‘our side’ felt like a possibility. And since we’re _really_ on our own side now, what with the switching places and all, I thought it would be nice to commemorate that.”

“You old sap,” said Crowley. A broad smile spread across his face as he slipped his arm around Aziraphale’s waist. 

They found a cafe that they had never been to before and sat down at one of the outdoor tables. Crowley thought it might be best to avoid their usual places for their first venture out, since the waiters might remark on the sudden change of appearance of one of their regular customers, and upset Aziraphale by drawing attention to it. Their choice of restaurant turned out to be a good one, because Aziraphale was as excited to try their crepes as Crowley was to watch him eat them.

“Crowley, I wanted to ask you something,” Aziraphale said, delicately wiping his lip with a napkin after his meal. "Do you remember when we had that conversation about falling? How you didn't want me to fall, because you said that I deserved an eternity of love?" 

"Yeah," Crowley said, tilting his head curiously as he tried to figure out where Aziraphale was going with this. 

"Well, I realized that I already have that, no matter whether I fell or not. As long as you're with me, an eternity of love is within my reach. My love for you, and I hope, your love for me.”

Crowley found his tongue unable to form words in response to that, so Aziraphale rambled on. "That is, if you want to love me for all eternity. Would you do that for me? It would make me immensely happy if you did…"

“Of course I will,” Crowley said, forcing his mouth to work even though his mind only felt capable of forming incoherent syllables. “If you would let me do that, _love you for all eternity,_ I would consider myself the lucky one.”

“Good. Now, for the question that I really wanted to ask.” He got up out of his chair, and bent down on one knee beside Crowley. 

Crowley gulped. He knew what this looked like, except for one key detail. There was no ring box in his hand. Except then, Aziraphale fiddled with the signet ring on his own pinky finger. He twisted it off, and held it up between his thumb and forefinger, and then there was no mistaking what was going on here. 

“Yes,” Crowley squeaked. 

“I haven’t even asked yet,” Aziraphale said, with a cheeky smile that lit Crowley up inside with so much affection that he thought he might burst. Aziraphale tilted the frames of his sunglasses down so that he could look up at Crowley with his radiant eyes. “Crowley, love of my life, will you marry me?”

“Yes!” Crowley said, sounding more sure of himself this time. Aziraphale took Crowley’s left hand in both of his, and slid the ring onto his fourth finger. Crowley's fingers were slimmer than Aziraphale's, so the ring that Aziraphale wore on his pinky fit perfectly onto Crowley’s ring finger. He pressed a reverent kiss to the back of Crowley's hand.

"I think an angel should be the one to wear this ring," Aziraphale said.

“But… it’s yours,” Crowley said, as if he had any intention of giving it back.

“How fitting, then, because I’m _yours,_ ” Aziraphale replied. He still held Crowley’s hand, but he felt entirely too far away, and Crowley wanted to close that distance immediately. He tugged on Aziraphale’s hand, pulling him up, and then guiding him into his lap. Aziraphale adjusted himself, not entirely used to being the one sitting in Crowley’s lap, but Crowley just wanted to hold him close, in any configuration possible. Crowley’s arms encircled his round waist and Aziraphale relaxed against him.

“My angel. My _husband,_ ” Crowley whispered against Aziraphale’s lips.

Crowley reached up and pulled off his own sunglasses, then Aziraphale’s, and placed them both on the table in front of him. It wasn’t as if they needed them, when their eyes were likely to be closed for the near future. Aziraphale’s lips against his own were the only sensation that Crowley cared about in that moment. It didn't matter to him which one of them was an angel and which a demon, because the love that they shared was their own.

**Author's Note:**

> The inspiration for this was the classic short story, [The Gift of the Magi](https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/1-the_gift_of_the_magi_0.pdf). The title is a quote from the story, and the full quote is “Maybe the hairs of my head could be counted, but no one could ever count my love for you.”
> 
> Credits:
> 
> The Do It With Style Mini Bang mods, for organizing such an amazing event.
> 
> [CynSyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CynSyn/pseuds/CynSyn), for doing absolutely breathtaking art for my story, and for having patience with me when I was being hard to work with.
> 
> [rowdyhomo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowdyhomo/pseuds/rowdyhomo), my beta, for insightfully pulling on the emotional threads of this story and bringing it closer to what I wanted it to be.
> 
> Special Thanks:
> 
> [somethingscarlet13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingscarlet13/pseuds/somethingscarlet13), who wrote [this post](https://somethingscarlet13.tumblr.com/post/185829667850/heaven-finds-out-about-the-swap-and-theyre-pissed), which inspired the Aziraphale falling part of the story, and who has the same headcanon for Aziraphale’s eyes.
> 
> [burrsir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/burrsir/pseuds/burrsir), who encouraged me when this story was in early development. 
> 
> [Arka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arka_r/pseuds/Aziraphales), who drew the very first art of this pair, [here.](https://arkadraws.tumblr.com/post/187870966035/designed-temptationaccomplisheds-reverse-au) The designs have changed since then, but these are still super cute!
> 
> If that’s not too many links for you already, come find me on tumblr! temptation--accomplished


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